View User's Journal

This is to help me stay actively writing. So expect to see rants, tips on writing, thoughts on subjects, me complaining of boredom, reviews, anime, movies, video games, conventions, tv shows and whatever life throws at me.

Team Fortress 2 Fanfiction Information & Ideas

So you wanna write a Team Fortress 2 fanfiction, but don’t know where to start? Well, you’ve come to the right place!

The first things you need to figure out is the Five Ws of your story.

Who is it about?What happened?When did it take place?Where did it take place?Why did it happen?

BASIC INFORMATION

The basic information about Team Fortress 2 can help you answer the Five Ws. All it requires is for you to do some research for your story, because you need to know the setting of the fandom you’re writing about. You can also learn why there’s a war, how the characters got involve, what do they know about the war and whatnot. Sometimes there’s not enough information to explain certain things, but you can make some educated guesses base on what you’ve learned.

To start you off in the right direction, Team Fortress 2 takes place in the 1960s (specifically in 1968). We know that because the storyline of the game has been revealed through comics, Meet the Team videos, and major updates.

During the Summer of 1968, nine individuals - the Scout, the Soldier, the Pyro, the Demoman, the Heavy Weapons Guy, the Engineer, the Medic, the Sniper, and the Spy - were recruited by Reliable Excavation & Demolition (RED) and Builders League United (BLU) to continue Redmond and Blutarch’s neverending war — The Gravel War — to seize the land left to them by their deceased father.

Helen, also known as the Administrator or the Announcer, is a descendant of Elizabeth and acts as the overseer of the large-scale battles fought amongst these nine mercenaries.

The Gravel War takes place worldwide, not just in America, and not only in the Badlands. The teams move around from base to base while the previous battlefield is being repaired.

At some point in 1971 The Gravel War ends, because Gray Mann, another brother, grew tired of Redmond and Blutarch’s useless feud, and killed them both.

Three days later, Gray makes his move against Mann Co., sending a massive robot army to attack all of the company’s facilities. Saxton Hale is too busy wrestling a Yeti to deal with the crisis himself, so he sends a video message to the RED and BLU mercenaries informing them that with Redmond and Blutarch dead, the Gravel War has finally ended and they no longer have jobs. He then immediately re-hires both teams to defend Mann Co. against the robots.

There’s a lot more history in TF2 but when your story only focuses on the war between RED and BLU that’s probably all you want to know. If not, and you’re looking for more information to learn, than I encourage you to do the research. Not just for TF2 but for the time period that it takes place in! There’s a lot of things that weren’t invented in 1960s and society was quite different from today’s. So keep that in mind when you’re writing your story and creating your Original Character.

Also, here’s some information to keep in mind —

+ The bases are all outfitted with surveillance cameras and loudspeakers operated and monitored by the Administrator alone, as we’ve seen in Meet the Directorand other comics. Presumably the bases have to be repaired on a regular basis after every fight. It can also be assumed that the teams are sent to other bases to give workers time to repair the damage base (or the Administrator just wanted a change of scenery and sends them to different locations).

+ It has been established that the mercs are being paid handsomely. In the WAR! update comic, the RED Demoman tells his mother that he “made five million dollars last year”. In the Bombonomiconcomic which accompanied the Halloween 2011 event, the flustered Heavy hands 7,000 dollars in cash to a crying child.

+ They aren’t trapped in the bases. They do get days off from fighting to do whatever they wish. They can visit their elderly mother or go to Vegas and check out the gun shows. In the comic, RED Demoman and BLU Soldier met and became friends at an explosives convention, which severely anger the Administrator as they may share information about their job and discover that they were working for the same person.

+ We know from Loose Canon comic that Dell Connagher was first hired as an engineer by BLU in 1950 and given his grandfather’s (Radigan Connagher) notes to repair Blutarch’s longevity machine. In the time between 1950 and 1968 he presumably built an improved model, the respawn, for Helen — the Administrator.

+ The Administrator used the Director to find information on each of the mercenaries. Using the Director was a way for her to warn them of the dangers of discussing the terms of their contracts with anyone. It was a clever way for her to bring up the subject, while making it clear to them that as long as they keep quiet, then they don’t have to worry about anything happening to their love ones (or precious things).

THE TENTH CLASS

The Tenth Class has to fill a unique role, which will be pretty difficult to do since the team is already balance. There’s 3 Supporter Classes, 3 Offense Classes and 3 Defense Classes. When someone wants to bring in a Tenth Class, they disrupt the balance and/or they create an unnecessary class.

It’s incredibly difficult to create a Tenth Class that isn’t over powered, that is useful and doesn’t interfere with another Classes’ role. However, it can be done in fanfiction! It’s a lot easier to create a Tenth Class for it, then it is for the actual game.

For example, the “Bomber” class. This class uses mines, grenades, and dynamites as weapons. It sounds appealing enough but it’s a redundant class. Demoman already fills that role as the explosive expert.

What about a “Blade” class? This class uses swords, daggers and shields. That could work for a fanfiction, but they’ll be quite at a disadvantage since everyone has firearms. And if you’re thinking of the game then this class would be completely useless. Demoman with a shield and a melee weapon becomes Demoknight.

The main factor of creating a decent Tenth Class is to figure out what your story is going to be like. It is going to be exactly like the game? Where there’s no such thing as friendly fire and you can walk through your teammates? That random crates of ammo and health kits litter the battlefield?

Depending on your answer, it’s important to create a Tenth Class that’s useful and most importantly makes sense. Some of the classes listed below aren’t perfect, that’s because they’re just ideas. They are meant to inspire you to create your own. Should you feel that one of the classes has the potential to be great, then go ahead and use them.

Just remember that if you create an amazing Tenth Class that fits perfectly in your story, that doesn’t mean they would work in the actual game. So if your story is exactly like the game, then it would be difficult for your readers to swallow. There’s a reason why Valve only has nine classes and never added another one.

But the great thing about fanfiction is that you have more liberty with the material. So you’re free to expand the game, to explain how certain things happen, to add some realism in it, to remove what you think is unnecessary or won’t work.

Now, here are the Tenth Class Ideas…

Assist - Is a class that acts as a portable ammo (and/or health kits) carrier. They can help teammates when they’re low on ammo or need health kits. But this class requires to run back to the base to refill their own supplies. Also, this class is great to use if your story has some realism in it.

For example, it’s unrealistic for ammo packs and health kits to be lying around on the battlefield. And this class would replace that aspect of the game, but then again, this doesn’t have to be a Tenth Class. You could create an OC that’s paid by the Administrator to leave ammo and health kits lying around for both teams, and to replace them when someone uses it.

Backup - Is a class that can act as a temporary replacement for a class that’s killed and is waiting to respawn. For example, if the Medic is killed and the team is desperately in need of a Medic, the Backup can be the Medic until they’re back. As the Medic the Backup can heal teammates using medkits (or a smaller version of the medigun).

A writer can establish in their story, that the respawn machine takes some time for a person to appear. So the Backup could have more of a role in helping out their team. Or if the writer wants to take a darker route, where there isn’t a respawn machine, and if a character dies, they die. The Backup Class could fill the role of the fallen teammate, until a replacement appears.

Trapper - Is a class that can set a limit amount of traps around the battlefield. The hidden traps are tripwires, bear traps, tar traps and even alarm traps. They are used to slow down the enemy, to kill or even be used as a warning of when they’re near by.

Decoy - Is a class that is quick and can divert the enemies’ attention on to themselves, which allow teammates to take down the enemy or to give them a chance to escape undetected. The Decoy could also project an image of themselves to trick enemies into attacking it. Or they can create an projection of objects like RED/BLU Dispensers, Teleporters, and so on, to trick the enemy to head towards it (this gives the Decoy a chance to take them out or for the Decoy to work with a Spy or Sniper, in which they take out the unsuspecting enemy).

Theses are just ideas, that’s why they aren’t fully flesh out. If you want, you can use these ideas for your story, just be sure to develop them! And if not, I hope that they had inspire your own Tenth Class ideas.

ORIGINAL CHARACTERS

Now, what if you’re introducing a Female Tenth Class or a Female Class? For example, a Female Sniper, and I’m not talking about genderbending Sniper (or any of the other classes). Let’s say that your story establish that there’s no respawn machine. That if a someone dies in battle, they’re permanently dead and so they need to be replace. The replacement Sniper could be a female. They could be English. They could be from anywhere, but they need to be a Sniper, or whatever Class they’re replacing.

Something I would like to mention here is if you want to introduce a female within a certain Class, (or females in general) make sure to have a good reason for them wearing whatever it is that they wear and doing what they do. For example, why would a Female Scout be wearing a skirt? Or why would she be wearing belly shirts? Or why would a Female Sniper have her long hair loose and covering her face? Those things are not practical.

Also, don’t forget that it’s in the 1960s. Somethings like jeans, fishnet stockings, ipods, cell phones and so on weren’t invented yet. But feel free to change a few things around, because many believe that TF2 takes place in an alternative 1960s where certain things where invented a little earlier. For example, it wasn’t until 1970 when aluminum bats became effective enough for mass distribution. Scout wouldn’t have a bat in 1968, but who’s to say that it wasn’t invented a little earlier? Or that he got access to a metal bat when he joined?

This could be applied to male characters as well. What they wear, how they look and what they do is all connected. There’s always a reason for it, even if we don’t know what it is. For example, the Solider has an helmet that hides his eyes, it’s not practical at all, but maybe he has a reason for it? In his mind, it might make perfect sense to have a helmet like that. He might think it protects his eyes from debris or sunlight. It’s establish that he has a few bolts loose in his head, so a reason like that would fit him perfectly.

Anyway, what if you want to add a OC into TF2, but they’re not going to be a Tenth Class or a replacement for a Class?

That’s easy!

We already know that Miss Pauling works for the Administrator and she’s not the only one. There’s definitely other people that work for the Administrator too, but we don’t see them because they aren’t that important. They’re just workers that keep everything running smoothly. It’s all about a chain of command. The Administrator runs the show — the business and Miss Pauling acts as her right-hand man and carries out her orders. I wouldn’t be surprise if most of those that work for the Administrator have never directly talked to her and have only interacted with Miss Pauling.

With fanfiction, you have more freedom to expand on that area. We don’t see people working behind the scenes but we can assume that they’re there. So for your story, for example, you can have someone or a group of people that focus on repairing damages done to each base after every battle.

Maybe there’s someone or a group of people that make sure that all of the cameras that the Administrator watches through, are working before each battle and fix them if they become damage.

There’s people that ship supplies to the bases, be it metal (for the engineer), ammo, medicine, toiletries (soap, toothpaste, toilet paper, etc) and food. Or maybe each base has a cafeteria and there’s a chef that makes meals for them? Or maybe they’re just given MRE? If the base is damaged (and not from a battle) — be it a water pipe broke, there was a fire hazard, a toilet broke…whatever — someone will have to go there and fix it.

There has to be someone that delivers the mail and packages, someone that picks up the trash, maybe someone that does the laundry. You have a lot of room to play in this area and it’s not that difficult to add an OC. Just remember to develop them well and to do your research!